The Beaver Onlinehttps://beaveronline.co.uk
Newspaper of the LSE Students' UnionMon, 19 Mar 2018 07:57:26 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Working Class Diary: LSE Students Share Their Storieshttps://beaveronline.co.uk/working-class-diary-lse-students-share-stories/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/working-class-diary-lse-students-share-stories/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 20:48:39 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=30121Current students shed light on their experiences of arriving at the LSE from a working class background In starting LSE, the challenges felt like things I shouldn’t be making a fuss about. I spent a long time questioning why I looked at the reading list each week with complete dismay, climbing a mountain but […]

]]>Current students shed light on their experiences of arriving at the LSE from a working class background

In starting LSE, the challenges felt like things I shouldn’t be making a fuss about. I spent a long time questioning why I looked at the reading list each week with complete dismay, climbing a mountain but every time I got to the top I had to start over again. Surely everyone felt the same, so I shouldn’t be complaining! And then there was the world of professional jobs, with titles I’d never heard of, in fields I’d never heard of. How am I supposed to know the career I want when I can’t get past this rudimentary step? Again others tell me they feel the same, so perhaps I’m just over-thinking it.

It took half of first year for me to realise that these worries, to mention a couple, aren’t an over-reaction. There’s an unexplainable chunk of knowledge missing when you come from the “non-typical” background at LSE. It’s hard to explain it to the more “typical” students, and it’s hard to rationalise it within your own mind. I can’t say what exactly it is that’s missing, as I haven’t been to the type of school and don’t have the social capital that allows for it.

All I know is I don’t have imposter syndrome because I believe in myself and there’s a reason we all got into this university – and perhaps the odds were less in our favour, but we did it nonetheless.

Karina Moxon, Second Year

The London School of Economics. ‘One could only dream’ is how I once felt. Not only was it too far-fetched of a dream but one that seemed like it will forever remain one.
I grew up in a council estate in a rough borough where stabbings and drug use was not something uncommon. Free school dinners and bursaries were a must for me to be able to go to school. My parents worked hard to ensure we never felt like we didn’t have enough. living in a 3-bedroom council flat with 6 siblings wasn’t the easiest of things.

Being an ethnic minority Muslim from a low socio-economic background is the recipe for deprivation when it comes to job prospects. I found myself applying to every ‘Minority opportunity’. I undertook number of unpaid to underpaid internship because I just wasn’t privileged enough to be someone who’s friend’s dad happened to work at a huge firm.

Working my way up was a slippery slope, with the help of two scholarships I could afford my dream to study at the London School of Economics. Because as much as they might make you feel like you need to be privileged to make it – talent, passion and will power can brew anywhere in the world, even in that council estate.

Anonymous

I feel a obliged to write this as I feel that everyone should be able to learn from the experiences and advice from others. This is a small part of my story, but a part that has taught me a lot nonetheless and I hope that others can learn from this too.

I come from a working-class background so to speak. But, if you really ask me I would say I come from a workless class background, as both my parents do not work. One parent does not work out of disability and the other due to the necessity to care for the other. What this can often cause is a lack of aspiration to seep into a family, as day in day out you wake up to see both parents at home doing similar things every day. What compounded this was the fact that my father and mother only did 11 and 8 years of formal education respectively back in their home country. However, I was a little different and a little luckier, as I had access to free education, free school meals and free resources to utilise in secondary school, although only 39% of exam entries received a Grade C or higher. But then again, I think I got luckier and luckier as I had an interest in anything and everything. This interest allowed me to get relatively decent GCSE’s whilst extensively playing Assassin’s Creed 3 during the exam period instead of revising. In 2015 it got even better, I really hit the jackpot when I entered LAE, a recently built pilot school as part of legacy a for the Olympics, and now a winner of state school of the year. LAE was a government-funded project that has already had a lasting impact on my life and is changing the narrative for many others.

This means that overall, I got a fairly good formal education, maybe not at the level of Etonians, but good nonetheless. However, looking at it in a different way, I think I may have received the best education possible, and I say this because my education through experience has been unparalleled. I have been fortunate enough to see different sides of the social spectrum, going from a decent secondary school, to a great sixth form full of hardworking yet socially challenged individuals, to a prestigious and personally favourite university in the form of the LSE. Through this experience, I have learnt more than I could possibly express. Having come to the LSE, I increasingly feel that it is critical to isolate one’s own perspective from new perspectives, as my previously held narratives were radically challenged. This is perhaps the best way to empathise, understand and learn in the long journey we have ahead, as we become open to new ideas and concepts that we can adapt to.

I am going to end on a longish quote by a recently found role model, who said “Never get weighed down by your roots but never forget them as in the end they will support you like all roots do to trees.”. I guess in a long-winded way, what I am trying to say is, try to absorb all perspectives and find out how the other half live, not just in a financial sense, as no matter which half you are, both halves are surely better than one.

Momen Sethi, LSESU BME Officer Elect

As a working class, mature student with children from a small working class town in the north of England, coming to LSE was a culture shock. Greggs was replaced by a Pret on every corner, I discovered people actually put sweet potato & goats cheese in pastry and called it a pie (it’s actually really nice by the way) and I realised that my ‘normal’ was so different to most of the people around me and for the most part this is based on income and experiences relating to class. Class is something that perhaps you don’t notice unless you’re at a disadvantage at LSE, as a working class person you feel it in every aspect of university life. From the freshers week parties I couldn’t afford to go to leading to my spending most of my first year with few friends, to the emails from lecturers recommending you buy a course book on Amazon because its ‘only’ £60 there and the library has 3 copies for 50 students, to the department away days where you are required to pay upfront before applying for a bursary you may not even get and to the graduation balls that cost £80 to attend and require formal wear you can’t afford to buy. I often listen to other students talk about spending their summer relaxing at the second family home in Morocco, how reasonably priced their £6 super food salad was or what a good investment their Canada Goose jacket was. At the same time I’m wondering if I’ll be able to feed and entertain the kids over Easter or whether it will be another trip to the park, whether the book I need is going to be available in the library and whether I can afford to fix my broken laptop. There is always the option of a job of course, if I can get it, but outside of a job and children, where would I find time to research and write those summative assignments or exam revision?

Being working class at LSE isn’t all bad. As a working class woman you’re taught to have ambition, but not to aim too high because you’re supposed to be proud of being working class. The environment at LSE has helped me see that not only is it okay to aim high, it’s encouraged and expected. Being in London and having these expectations has allowed me to have so many experiences I would never have had at another university. If nothing else I hope that LSE’s first Class Week opens up the conversation about class and how we can mitigate the disadvantages it can bring to those at the lower end of the spectrum throughout life – just because someone was born poor doesn’t mean they deserve to stay there.

Jennifer Cutcliffe, Mature and Part-time Students Officer

My name is Banu Hammad and I entered the UK as a Kurdish asylum seeker, fleeing from the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime. Coming from such a background of political turmoil, my parents were not as well equipped as other parents in helping me with homework and thus, from a young age, I have been inclined towards independence. Indeed, the aspiration of higher education was a very remote one for my parents and I, with LSE and Oxbridge appearing impossibilities.

Despite obstructions on my path to LSE such as frequent relocation, homelessness and a resulting unstable education, I ultimately achieved grades that rivalled my wealthier, more privileged counterparts. Freshers week came as an admitted shock to me as I realised that my fellow students were clearly from backgrounds that were diametrically different to mine. The majority of them were seemingly inclined toward the commercial pathway – a pathway that prior to LSE was not an aspiration of mine. The corporate machine that is the LSE challenged me. It brought my imposter syndrome to the fore. For a while, I had an inability to internalise my accomplishments and thus, questioned my place at the institution. It took me a year to acknowledge that my entry was well-earned and that despite my differences, I retain as much a right to call myself an LSE student than anyone else.

Banu Hammad, LSESU Social Mobility and Class Officer elect

Being working class at LSE for me means dealing daily with micro-aggressions and trying hard to rationalise it because ‘they don’t know better’. It means feeling like I don’t belong and indirectly being locked out of events and social gatherings due to heavy price-tags. It is when exclusion is so deeply embedded in the HE culture, that it manifests itself in your own course; a competitive year abroad programme in the US – for LLB students – which is supposedly based on ‘merit’… yet there is no scholarship available as students must find a way to sponsor themselves and basically fork out almost 100K.

Being working class at LSE for me is best exemplified by when your fellow students commend you for your hard-work and ‘ambition’ – people admire that I attend so many careers events, thinking I am just driven and striving to emulate me. Inspired by my hustle, they too jump on the bandwagon with full knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, their lives are “set out” for them (in their own words). My working-class struggle at LSE is coveted and deeply fetished but only I know that my motivation stems from the lack of choice, while their motivation stems from curiosity and sometimes even mockery. While most students at LSE will always have a parental safety net when money runs out, I am well aware that I don’t have the option to simply travel and explore after University. I absolutely must secure a grad job – there is no other option.

Angelica Olawepo, First Year Law

There are some issues that I currently face, as do plenty of student from my socioeconomic background, that I would have never anticipated when first enrolling at the LSE. The popular view of obtaining a place at this Uni is that it qualifies all students for many privileged breaks – in work and further education. But, there is also the ‘meritocracy’ argument of how elite institutions (like the LSE) are transformative mantles for the brightest minds of the lower-classes to inherit. I do not represent a middle-ground of either views; my stance is more informed by my experiences as an LSE student. Indeed, I could be accused of having the inferiority complex of hailing from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background, but I feel that thriving here takes more than a strong academic mindset and good grades. In my opinion, the biggest quandary facing working-class LSE students is not their potential, but the class-capital they are set without when enrolling. I do not intend to essentialise or belittle anyone’s capabilities, but more contextual provisions to mobilize working-class students and empower their academic voices should be made. Personally, I believe I would have benefited greatly from a mentor in my first year, someone from my class and ethnic or racial background to ensure the course of my intellectual development.

Laila Ali, Second Year History

As a working class student, I don’t have enough funds to live and study in London. Unfortunately I don’t receive money from my family due to my socioeconomic background, and the high cost of living in London leaves me falling short. On average, I work about 20 hours a week to make up this difference – to pay for my rent, my bills, my food and more. My university experience has been shaped by the necessity for work, and I feel worlds apart from my colleagues who don’t have this pressure and have what I see a more traditional ‘university life’. Nonetheless, I’m okay with this. I think my unique way of moving through university, whilst draining and hard-work and very often demoralising, has been an experience that will always stay with me and strengthen me in my character, motivation and career. It is bittersweet – most of my colleagues at LSE come from extremely privileged and wealthy backgrounds, which does rub me the wrong way when my whole university experience is shaped by my difference to them. However, over time I’ve realised that my experience will always be different and it doesn’t reflect a deficiency in me, and in truth it makes me more resilient, driven and is a source of pride and power.

Will Priest, Second Year PPE

I am very proud of being working class. Getting to LSE has been such a personal achievement for me. Being working class at a university like the LSE isn’t easy, it feels like the cards are never dealt in your favour. I feel like I’ve always been aware of my class background but more so at the LSE, the most prevalent example was probably when my first year Social Policy teacher asked the class “who went to a state school?” as we were discussing education policy in the UK. Three of us put our hands up and described to the class what our experiences were, I said there’s usually about 30 of you in the class and you all share 2 glue sticks.

While I have always felt working class, coming to LSE makes me look at the world through ‘class-tinted glasses’, because back home in my small Suffolk town the relative difference between classes is so minute compared to the disparity in London. I feel like if nothing else the LSE has invigorated my class identity, because we always talk about ‘social mobility’ and this idea that everyone aspires to be middle class, but in my opinion, we should be proud of where we have come from and strive to break down barriers that stop the working class achieving.

George Burgess, Second Year

My class identity has been central to my time at LSE. Backhanded comments, often never said in good faith, are a daily occurance. From repeatedly explaining a “cheap” last minute holiday deal is out of the question, or that they “can’t understand how you can go to Uni without the help of your parents” can be increasingly difficult to deal with. LSE can be isolating at the best of times, but even more so when you struggle to participate or keep up. LSE was never my destiny- for the daughter of a boatyard foreman, this is a world that I still struggle to find my place in. But that will always be okay. University experience isn’t homogeneous, nor should it ever be. We are all navigating LSE differently, so if you work 20 hours a week on top of studying, its not that you have missed out, but that your experience is different.

When I first got involved in the social mobility referendum, we were asked to write a paragraph about my experiences. I wrote about how class is something that isn’t confined to a text book. I I wrote that at the end of a studying in the library, most people get to put any discussions of class back on the shelf. But now, I feel like my university experience is morphed by the need to defend my background against people who have only seen class in textbooks. Sometimes, I want to shut the library book and leave class behind. Sometimes, I want to choose when I am political and when I am just me, but that choice is a luxury. This week, to me, is about having these conversations across campus, but respecting that for some these conversations aren’t simple debates.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/working-class-diary-lse-students-share-stories/feed/0Straight Up Disappointed with AU Pride Nighthttps://beaveronline.co.uk/pride-night-disappointment/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/pride-night-disappointment/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 17:40:49 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=29764I am writing this on Thursday the 15th of March, the day after volunteering at AU Pride night in Tuns. I went in hoping, maybe this year, we would actually see bonding between members of the Pride Alliance and members of the AU. I was hoping, maybe this year, I would be able to have […]

]]>I am writing this on Thursday the 15th of March, the day after volunteering at AU Pride night in Tuns. I went in hoping, maybe this year, we would actually see bonding between members of the Pride Alliance and members of the AU. I was hoping, maybe this year, I would be able to have fun with queer people and allies alike. Instead, much like every year, it was the same tokenistic event that queer people at the LSE have come to expect.

AU members begged for AU Pride night to happen this year, and the person who organised it finally relented and put in a great deal of effort to decorate the Tuns, ensure there was a playlist, and make sure there was face paint and glitter for us all to enjoy. Instead of a celebration of the ‘inclusivity’ of the AU, my friend and I had to argue and beg for our music, selected especially for the night, not to be turned off for the entirety of the football game. Despite the obvious demand for AU Pride night, very few AU members actually engaged with us. I do not believe we would have had nearly as good a turn out had the football not been screened live, which in itself is disappointing, but as petty as it sounds, the fact we were worn down into allowing our music to be turned off for the second half of the game was a real kick in the teeth. Not only that, but when the music was turned back on, it was not the playlist that one of our members so painstakingly prepared (we still do not know exactly how this happened).

We are fed up with putting so much energy and emotional labour into events like this for AU members just to throw it back in our faces. We are fed up with this event just allowing clubs to tick the box which states they are ‘inclusive’, when in reality they do nothing else all year round and let us, the marginalised group they claim to be so inclusive of, put in most of the work. I am sick of hearing AU members state they only want glitter or rainbow flags painted on their faces so they can later pull in the club. They do not have the right to preach their inclusivity when in reality, even when asked to actually engage with us for one night in a whole year, the football is more important.

Most AU members have the privilege of walking away from Pride night and forgetting all about it, but we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try and forget that our presence there was not because they wanted to engage with us, but because they wanted to claim their brownie points. You can call me a snowflake all you want, say that I am too sensitive, or being unfair to deprive AU members of their precious football match, but it is exhausting fighting every day for our existence and our rights, to get the same respect as our non-queer peers, and to constantly be the ones saddled with the vast majority labour of organising these events. I hope next year we do not do an AU Pride night, because I do not feel the majority of the AU members deserve the effort we put in, and they certainly do not deserve to be considered inclusive.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/pride-night-disappointment/feed/0Counting Down My 10 Favourite Inventionshttps://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions-2/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions-2/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 16:08:13 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=3006410. The Knife The world would be a much larger place without the cutting edge invention that is the knife. The knife has successfully reduced meat, potatoes and veg down to manageable size since its advent in the Bronze Age. Its status as an instrumental tool in our daily lives has been cemented with its […]

The world would be a much larger place without the cutting edge invention that is the knife. The knife has successfully reduced meat, potatoes and veg down to manageable size since its advent in the Bronze Age. Its status as an instrumental tool in our daily lives has been cemented with its development into numerous variations: who could forget such classics as the fish knife, the steak knife and, of course, the butter knife? I, for one, could not and that’s why the knife slices into my top 10.

9. The Synthesiser

Having evolved from the archaic and wooden piano, the synthesiser was a game-changer in modern music. Its simple plastic keys allowed a wide assortment of sounds to fill a space the piano was never up to filling. From Acid House to Synth-pop, the synthesiser spawned genres that pinged their way into popular music.

8. Bread

Some may argue Sliced Bread tops the list here, but what came first, the chicken or the egg?

7. The Hat Rack

Ever since Sean Connery so effortlessly tossed his bowler hat onto the majestically upright pegs that formed the crown of Moneypenny’s hat rack, the versatility of the invention came exploding into our daily lives. From a simple inanimate object, the hat rack went to the equivalent of your best mate, wing manning you on a night out. Opting to stand there silently in the corner, he takes every possible action to make you look good.

6. The Shield

As the common saying goes, “Defence is the best form of Attack”. The shield encapsulates this notion with ease. Why wield a pointy bit of steel when you can hold a wider one? Some may argue it is less attractive than its counter-part the sword, but, as we all know, it’s always important to use protection.

5. The Pencil

A very humble invention, the pencil has been the trusty tool of everyone from carpenters to architects, from designers to artists. It comes in a plethora of sizes and shades ranging from the dark 9b to the much lighter 9H. This is one tool where size certainly does not matter.

4. The Cave Wall

The Cave Wall was the very first medium that artists used to express ideas and represent their surroundings. This set off a chain of events that is still progressing today and has produced such notable artists as George Bush Jr.

3. The Billboard

Most recently used to such powerful effect in ‘Three Billboard Outside of Epping, Missouri’, the billboard offers a welcome relief from advertising that seeks to distract drivers with excessive movements caused by fast moving air. We feel much more comfortable and safe on the road in the knowledge that drivers are looking at an innate rectangle.

2. The Square

The square keeps our world in check. Whilst often used in a derogatory sense, the square is the hero who doesn’t wear a cape. They are the person who keeps our admin ticking along at a sensible rate.

1. The Lamp

Some self-proclaimed genius once thought it would be good to put Lava in a lamp; never has an invention been so bastardised. It is an insult to our democracy to replace its warming glow with a fluorescent nonsense that only serves to encourage those non-tax paying hippies to smoke marijuanas.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions-2/feed/0Winning Week for LSE Women’s Footballhttps://beaveronline.co.uk/winning-week-lse-womens-football/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/winning-week-lse-womens-football/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 15:41:51 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=29904League Champions After a season which has seen seven wins, one draw and one loss, LSE Women’s Football 1st Team were declared Champions of the South Eastern 3B League with one game to spare, following a physical encounter with Buckingham New University at Berrylands. In the lead up to the match, the fixture was billed […]

After a season which has seen seven wins, one draw and one loss, LSE Women’s Football 1st Team were declared Champions of the South Eastern 3B League with one game to spare, following a physical encounter with Buckingham New University at Berrylands.

In the lead up to the match, the fixture was billed as the title decider, with only a point separating the two sides. A win for LSE would guarantee the league, and for Buckingham New with a simple fixture the following week at home to Hertfordshire 2nd, would likely seal the league on the final day.

The Team’s solitary loss of the BUCS season came away at Buckingham New, so LSE were keen to make amends and record a title clinching win at home against a side who’s previous conduct had been both aggressive and disrespectful towards many teams in the league.

With their mini-bus driver acting as manager on the side-lines, Buckingham New started off the game surprisingly well organised and proved difficult for LSE to break down. Some tidy defensive work from both sides ensured the match looked to be heading towards a stalemate. However, a Leigh Rowland goal for LSE just before the break elevated the team’s confidence going into half time.

Throughout the second half LSE’s lead rarely looked in doubt, and the team were able to relax on the ball with little pressure coming from Buckingham’s forwards, who remained static for much of the game. Mid-way through the half LSE added another goal through Lizzie Watson, and at 2-0 the team were happy to sit on the lead until the final whistle came.

When full time arrived, jubilant scenes erupted on the pitch with the players celebrating the win with our supporters who had been vocal all game and armed with beer- filled water pistols to spray the players as they came off. A bottle of champagne was then opened by our Social Secretary Tash Pickard and sprayed over our players, supporters and coaches as a dejected Buckingham New team looked on.

Varsity Winners

Following Wednesday’s title win, LSE Women’s Football enjoyed further success in the inaugural LSE vs. Imperial Varsity at Heston. Battling temperatures well below freezing point, the team came out 3-0 winners with goals from Eponine Howarth, Kelley Dougherty and Louise Armitage.

Though the score line reflects a comfortable win for LSE, a large proportion of the match was actually played with only 10 players, following a bizarre refereeing decision to send off one of our players over a seemingly trivial matter.

Women’s Football extends its thanks to Megan Beddoe and James Baxandall for their organisation of the event, and especially to James who ran the line for the duration of the match in freezing weather conditions.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/winning-week-lse-womens-football/feed/0A Conversation on Indian Media: Interview with Siddharth Varadarajanhttps://beaveronline.co.uk/30031-2/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/30031-2/#respondSun, 18 Mar 2018 14:13:56 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=30031Bhadra Sreejith sits down with Siddharth Varadarajan, Founding Editor of The Wire, to discuss fake news, online advertising, and the Indian media industry. Siddharth Varadarajan is a senior political analyst, LSE alumnus, and the former Editor of The Hindu, the widely respected 138-year old English newspaper headquartered in India. With a circulation of 1,617,147, it […]

]]>Bhadra Sreejith sits down with Siddharth Varadarajan, Founding Editor of The Wire, to discuss fake news, online advertising, and the Indian media industry.

Siddharth Varadarajan is a senior political analyst, LSE alumnus, and the former Editor of The Hindu, the widely respected 138-year old English newspaper headquartered in India. With a circulation of 1,617,147, it is the second-most widely circulated English newspaper in India behind The Times of India (which has the largest readership of any English newspaper in the world) and has a circulation wider than any newspaper in the United Kingdom.

In 2015, the Delhi-based former professor founded The Wire, an independent news website with 3.5 million unique viewers a month. It is one of the more popular recently-set up media platforms that aim to challenge the dominance of traditional Indian media houses backed by corporate interests. Siddharth Varadarajan came to the LSE to speak on “Challenges to Press Freedom in a Democracy”. The Beaver sat down with him to discuss his memories of LSE, the Indian media industry, and the challenges faced by an online-only news platform.

Photo credit: LSE South Asia Centre

You studied Economics at the LSE in the 1980s. How did that affect your worldview?

My view of the world today is pretty much the view that I acquired, or shaped, while I was at the LSE. There were so many things happening at the time. It was a very different time, politics was very contentious, and of course we were heavily involved in student politics. At the LSE, the Conservatives were a strong presence, but the university was very left-wing. There was Thatcher and the miners’ strikes, plus the Emergency in India. Mrs Thatcher provoked strong emotions, I remember, on both sides. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.

My favourite memory—well, it wasn’t quite connected to the campus. A number of us at the LSESU, as an act of solidarity, went and spent time with the miners and their families. I spent a couple of days up in Yorkshire with a miner on strike, got a strong insight into British working-class life. That’s an abiding memory I treasure.

Any people you studied with who went on to do interesting things?

I had a colleague who did a Masters with me—Egyptian woman, her name was Shafik—last I heard of her, she was very high up in the World Bank…

Minouche Shafik is actually the current Director of the LSE.

Oh wow! I lost track of her career trajectory. That’s interesting. And then, there’s Mia Mottley, who is currently the Opposition Leader of Barbados. So there was some of that, some people went on to do very interesting things. But most people ended up in run-of-the-mill professions…journalists, bankers, professors and so on.

Moving on, The Wire is funded entirely by donations and doesn’t allow advertising. How sustainable a business model is this?

The amount of money you raise through advertisements is minuscule, frankly, and isn’t worth the kind of real estate that you have to fork over to those companies. We appeal to readers to contribute—we experiment with readers finding some value in the work we do and agreeing to pay. If they don’t pay, it is not possible for us to sustain the work we are doing. We have large philanthropists who account for 60% of our operating budget, and the rest comes from readers. Two or three years down the road, I hope for the ratio to shift, and for it to be 40-60. It’s completely feasible; all indications are that people in India want to preserve independent journalism. We are very optimistic about reader-driven, reader-funded news.

Online-only news portals such as Newslaundry, Scroll.In and of course the Wire have increased massively in popularity over the past few years. Do you see online-only media outlets as a substitute or a compliment to traditional print media? Is this a reaction to the shortcomings of the mainstream media?

People are consuming more media digitally, and they are doing it on their phones. English-language newspapers, particularly among the young—well, the readership is plateauing or even decreasing. So newspapers are devoting more and more space to online journalism. The medium makes it easier for less resource-intensive news sources such as us to survive. The Wire started with maybe $5000. And in two and a half years, we scaled up, and reached the kind of impact that a newspaper can only dream of. That’s because of the nature of digital media, the nature of social media. The technology enables independent voices to flourish—we have taken advantage of that, and others are doing the same thing—but it’s not as if newspapers and television channels aren’t also investing a lot in their digital presence. It’s a very crowded space.

However, the same shortcomings are present in the big media houses online as in print. Firstpost was one of the first online-only news websites and had a huge impact. Then it was acquired by Reliance Industries and began to moderate and tone down its investigative focus, thereby losing its USP. The digital space allows small players to emerge and flourish, but at the end of the day it is the quality of journalism that really matters.

India is similar to the US, in that more people get their media from more online-only sources than in the UK. In the UK, it is still the traditional news websites—the Independent, the Guardian, the BBC, the Daily Mail, that dominate online content. The Guardian is a great example of a paper that digitally punches way above its weight. They are gambling on what we are gambling, which is free content, that speaks to the concerns of readers. Important stories about health, the environment, in the Indian context, corruption—they won’t necessarily be funded through advertising. At the Wire we are saying, if you want that, then please donate generously.

Photo credit: LSE South Asia Centre

The NYT and the Guardian have a very global reach. Should Indian newspapers be trying to expand their readership to the West to move away from such Western-centric coverage of world events?

It’s a tough proposition. The Indian media industry is really very insular, in terms of the content they provide to their readers, and in terms of their overall business vision. When I was Editor of the Hindu, I inherited a network of nine or ten foreign correspondents. That was the largest number that any Indian newspaper had.

Most Indian media, if they had a correspondent abroad, it would be in the US or the UK. And even there, the focus would be on diasporic stories. There will always be 10-15% of your web traffic coming from Indians abroad, simply because of the strength of the diaspora. Obviously, there’s a lot of interest in the issues facing Indians living abroad, but that can’t be the be-all and end-all of your coverage.

I don’t think any media house in India today is in a position to cover news on what is happening in Africa, say, that people in Asia are going to want to read. One thing is the cost—the other is that very few Indian media houses are truly independent from business interests and the government, and you need that to be credible.

The rise of “fake news” in the Indian context often means sharing articles that are not true on Whatsapp, which is sometimes harmless but often leads to communal violence. Is there a solution?

One has to fight it, but fake news has always been with us. Modern technology has increased the velocity with which it operates, but from the beginning of the media industry people have peddled lies. But there is a specificity to fake news in the Indian context—often information is circulated with a view to inciting violence. What do you do when information is aired via Whatsapp, when you have no idea who created this context? How do you trace the origin of a particular message on Whatsapp? It is important for us to actively try to counter fake news. There is a very good website called Altnews dedicated to rebuttals, and they get decent traffic. So there are enough people trying to dispel rumours, but it is hard to say how effective the counter is.

How has what you want to cover been shaped by the pressures of social media, as the Wire is online-only? Do you ever feel pressure to cover stories that you know will get more engagement? Is this any different to the pressures faced by traditional media?

In a traditional newspaper set-up, the editorial department is separate from the advertising department and circulation department. The traditional belief has been that you keep these three chambers separate. In India, unfortunately, Editorial comes under pressure from Advertising. That has its impact on selection of news, but not in a linear way. The papers that are overly dependent on advertising take on a certain editorial culture. You get used to thinking that your paper is catering to the richest segment of society, so are they really interested in a piece on rural deprivation or a disease that only affects the poor? Issues that don’t directly impact the life of elite readers do not make it into the agenda.

The line between your funding model and editorial content in some ways comes into even starker relief in the digital space, where teams come under enormous pressure to produce “clicky” content. ABCD—astrology, Bollywood, cricket and devotion—generate huge amounts of traffic, everything else is secondary. With that traffic comes advertising revenue. We at the Wire are not in that game. The metric that we are chasing is not how many clicks we get—we are not funded through that route. The pressures affecting print are there in an even more visible manner, online, for traditional media houses, but thankfully not for us.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/30031-2/feed/0Counting Down My 10 Favourite Inventionshttps://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions/#respondFri, 16 Mar 2018 17:44:12 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=2973510. The Spork One can only imagine how consumers got by before the advent of the spork. It was a stroke of awesome genius to combine the pricking ability of a fork with the scooping power of a spoon. Patents for sporks have existed since the 19th Century and the world hasn’t looked back since. […]

One can only imagine how consumers got by before the advent of the spork. It was a stroke of awesome genius to combine the pricking ability of a fork with the scooping power of a spoon. Patents for sporks have existed since the 19th Century and the world hasn’t looked back since. Never again would rice disappointingly fall through the gaps in a fork; never again would a spoon be pathetically mashed against a piece of chicken. The modern age of cutlery is here thanks to the spork.

9. The Piano

The piano is responsible for a whole load of nice sounds. From classics such as Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” and Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor” to modern hits like Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and Dr. Dre’s “Still D.R.E.”, the piano has been creating good tunes for many years and will probably continue to do so for many more.

8. Sliced Bread

Not many things are better than this one.

7. The Shoehorn

Shoehorns seem to have gone somewhat out of fashion. I long to return to the shoehorn’s glory days, where a household’s front porch was not complete without the erotic presence of a shoehorn’s smooth curves. These were days where putting on shoes at someone’s front door wasn’t an awkward stumbling affair but was an action that would stimulate raw sexual tension as foot was slipped gracefully into shoe. Did these glory days truly exist, or are they a figment of society’s imagination; wishful thinking of times past? Nobody can be certain. But the shoehorn is still a magnificent invention of pure class.

6. The Sword

Surely the second-mightiest of all inventions, the sword has been carving human history since time immemorial. It comes in many varieties: from the powerful broadsword to the delicate rapier and the sensual sabre. There are even minature versions of swords, called “daggers”.

5. The Pen

The mightiest of all inventions. From its early, feather-based versions (still favoured by Harry Potter enthusiasts) to its modern ball-point incarnation, the pen has been an essential part of writing for millennia, and still maintains a large presence despite the threatening presence of the keyboard.

4. The Drawing Board

Luckily, the inventors of the drawing board got it right first time. If they’d failed, they would have had nothing to go back to.

3. The Wacky Inflatable Arm Waving Tube Man

This is joy personified. Invented by Trinidadian artist Peter Minshall for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the Wacky Inflatable Arm Waving Tube Man has since become a staple of side-of-the-road advertising, challenging the billboard’s long reign. Despite being banned in some areas of the world (something about “urban visual clutter”), the Wacky Inflatable Arm Waving Tube Man remains a symbol of humanity’s ingenuity at creating versions of itself. The Wacky Inflatable Arm Waving Tube Man is humankind coming full circle: it is a modern-day cave painting of a stick man. For that, I love it.

2. The Wheel

This is a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. Attempts at reinvention have proved woefully unnecessary.

1. The Lava Lamp

Ah, what beauty; what elegance; what perfection of physics and chemistry for aesthetic ends! The lava lamp represents the sum of humanity’s achievements to date: what could be more human than an invention which cleverly harnesses the properties of the universe to create… an ornament which sits in the corner of a room and does nothing? The invention of the lava lamp in 1963 marked the apex of civilisation. Against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the possibility of mutually assured destruction, British accountant Edward Craven Walker invented a glimmer of hope; hope that we could use our knowledge not for violence or for greed, but for the sheer pointlessness of watching a few blobs move up and down.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/counting-10-favourite-inventions/feed/0How tolerant would Karl Popper be?https://beaveronline.co.uk/tolerant-karl-popper/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/tolerant-karl-popper/#respondWed, 14 Mar 2018 23:44:08 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=29712How tolerant should we be towards the intolerant? This question most famously tackled in Karl Popper’s 1945 “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, resurges regularly in the debate over free speech on campus. Crucially, both sides of the argument draw on perhaps LSE’s most influential thinker. One side calls out the alleged hypocrisy of the […]

]]>How tolerant should we be towards the intolerant? This question most famously tackled in Karl Popper’s 1945 “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, resurges regularly in the debate over free speech on campus. Crucially, both sides of the argument draw on perhaps LSE’s most influential thinker. One side calls out the alleged hypocrisy of the left for claiming to be tolerant and yet denying someone the right to speak. The other side cites that “if we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

Both sides could be heard at LSE last week, when Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s rightwing populist “Alternative for Germany” party was invited to give a talk at the LSESU Ethical Finance Society. Shortly after, however, the Student Union cancelled the event arguing that the security of the event could not be guaranteed.

The event’s description failed to represent crucial aspects of Miss Weidel’s biography. She leads a party with a sizeable faction holding despicable views on race, immigration, homosexuality, feminism and Islam. She has failed to condemn nationalist and antisemitic speech alluding to Nazi rhetoric by members of her own party. She has personally described German national identity as under threat from European integration and the presence of immigrants and refugees. She recently met Steve Bannon, former advisor of Donald Trump, to partake in his trans-national right-wing movement. Instead of mentioning the above, it most prominently featured her sexual orientation giving the impression of her being a progressive politician and successful businesswoman.

The Ethical Finance Society certainly appears an improbable organiser to host the leader of a right-wing party. This impression may be lessened considering that Miss Weidel worked with Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions throughout her career. No matter how odd the context may seem, it would not have been inappropriate to debate Miss Weidel. While the topic of her speech, “An Alternative View on Brexit”, was unlikely to touch upon her parties’ most contentious positions, there would most certainly have been enough room for members of the audience familiar with the German political context to challenge her on a wide range of issues.

One argument often put forward is that extremist views should not be given the platform to extend their political base or benefit from the credibility of respected institutions. Firstly, LSE is an unlikely breeding ground for right-wing populism. Miss Weidel would have had to confront opposition in a rational discourse. She would not have been able to rally her emotionally charged followers. As a German commentator recently quipped: “As long as Miss Weidel has her views challenged at LSE, she is kept from causing further mischief with her more susceptible political base in Germany”. Secondly, the very raison d’être of a university is to facilitate debate without endorsing particular views. The event was organised by a student body and the School’s political position remains entirely detached.

A populist’s most powerful strategy is to cause outrage, provoke sanctioning by the open society, and in turn evoke the impression that they are the victim. This perversely reverses the role of victim and agitator. One can only speculate that Miss Weidel comfortably accepted the invitation anticipating that LSE would intervene, revoke the invitation and cancel the event as so many “liberal” institutions have done before. This feeds the narrative of right-wing movements around Europe of being ostracised by the “liberal” establishment and its institutions.

Open society is not without defence. Its most effective response is unpredictable. It breaks the cycle of provocation, reaction and victimisation. It refrains from impulsively denouncing the opponent as “Nazis” – but demonstrates the inferiority of their arguments. This requires courage and emotional resilience in the face of disconcerting views.

Cancelling the event due to security concerns gives a weak testimony of an open society. Yes, there may be vocal protesters and perhaps unruly opposition attempting to disturb the event. But fear of the open society itself will most certainly not defend it against its enemies.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/tolerant-karl-popper/feed/0The SU, Alice Weidel, and the smell of censorshiphttps://beaveronline.co.uk/su-alice-weidel-smell-censorship/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/su-alice-weidel-smell-censorship/#respondWed, 14 Mar 2018 20:41:23 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=29655Thursday, 8th March, saw one of the most disappointing turnouts in recent SU elections. The Beaver reports that ‘just under 20% of the LSE’s student population’ voted to elect the new General Secretary. It seems, though, that somewhere at the Saw Swee Hock building it was felt that the week had not been sufficiently shameful. […]

]]>Thursday, 8th March, saw one of the most disappointing turnouts in recent SU elections. The Beaver reports that ‘just under 20% of the LSE’s student population’ voted to elect the new General Secretary. It seems, though, that somewhere at the Saw Swee Hock building it was felt that the week had not been sufficiently shameful.

On the same day of such poorly contested elections, the General Secretary issued a statement where he announced the SU’s decision to cancel an event organised by the LSESU Ethical Finance Society. The society had invited Alice Weidel to speak on Brexit. Ms Weidel is the leader of the main opposition party in Germany, Alternative for Germany, a right-wing party which is performing incredibly well in the polls, with an average of almost 14% of the votes. It was a funny and sad coincidence that the 8th of March was both the day we found out about the incredible lack of engagement by the student community with the SU elections, and the day when the General Secretary justified the SU’s censorious decision on the basis that it was representing the values and opinions of its members, the students. One wonders if the SU really knows what these values are.

It is perhaps a sad sign of the times that I should first note that I have no sympathy for Weidel’s controversial statements on a series of issues. Yet the point is precisely that whether or not I (or, indeed, the General Secretary or any other member of the SU) agree with her is absolutely irrelevant, and should by no means justify the cancellation of an event. But, somehow, the SU felt entitled to make such a decision: after all, it seems, university is now a place where, more than anything else, we want everyone to feel cosy and comfortable. Allowing Ms Weidel to say outrageous things might disrupt this obsession by the SU to turn university into a well of Danish hygge, a stream of endless comfort with chats by the fireplace about how warm and harmonious life is.

By cancelling the event, the SU must be incredibly proud of such a demonstration of power. And I’m sure Ms Weidel is very frustrated by the fact that she won’t have intelligent, knowledgeable students challenging her most controversial views. Instead, she will use the time to continue her political fight in Germany, and the more she is treated in the way the SU has treated her, the easier it will be for her to voice extreme views with an aura of martyr which she does not deserve.

What the SU has achieved — and very effectively — was to convey in a perfect way the attitude that it has towards its members. By cancelling the event, the SU has shown it does not trust its students’ ability to evaluate, analyse and reject arguments; it has shown that it believes that the only way to have a campus free of racism and xenophobia is by preventing students from being confronted with such type of arguments. University should be a place where our views are challenged and where we are incentivised to make the best possible case for each one of the views we hold. The SU has chosen to defeat the other side through censorship rather than reason and argumentation.

With it, the SU is dragging an entire student community to a space where comfort, harmony, and orthodoxy matter more than free speech, exchange of ideas and argumentation. Worse than that, it has resorted to the always useful excuse that the conditions of ‘security and safety at the event’ were not ensured. Needless to say, a Students’ Union which really serves its societies would make the best effort to ensure these conditions would be met. And it should not be too hard to do so when the LSESU is three times as costly per student as the average Students’ Union in the UK, as an article in the Beaver from November 2017 reported.

Instead of promoting debates and contributing to the most effective antidote to racism and xenophobia — persuasion by reasoned arguments — the SU made a clear statement and showed it prefers to address these issues by pretending they do not exist.We are reminded of the LSE’s motto nearly every day; the SU should make everyone clear of its own motto too. That way, should we ever need a rest from ‘To know the causes of things’ — a celebration of knowledge and intellectual stimulation — we can take refuge at the SU, where ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you.’

Wednesday 28th February marked the launch of a new charity, ‘Britain Has Class’, founded by recent LSE graduates Chris Fairley and Ronda Daniels alongside LSE’s General Secretary Mahatir Pasha and Social Mobility and Class Officer Jess Elms. The organisation aspires to rework contemporary ideas on working class identities, aiming to provide a platform for working class voices, as well as improving representation of and connections between working class people.

The movement stemmed out of the campaign for the establishment of a Social Mobility and Welfare Officer at the LSE Students Union, a role which passed with the largest majority in the union’s history. Momentum quickly spread beyond the LSE, as campaigns galvanised to install similar officers in student unions up and down the country. SOAS and the University of York now boast Class Officers as part of their liberation team, and seven others have plans to follow suit. Having inspired a generation of student unions, the team found they could build on this growing dialogue to bring into question the wider issue of working class identities, establishing Britain Has Class just five months later.

Since then, the organisation has snowballed. It has attracted the attention of working class charities, directors, activists and members of parliament, notably championed by Wes Streeting MP. Streeting hosted the charity’s launch in the Palace of Westminster, telling of the poverty he grew up with and continues to encounter within his constituency. He praised Britain Has Class, describing it as a “great way to kick off the class conversation”, adding that it was unusual for him to be surrounded by so many other working class people inside Westminster. It was this, he pointed out, which needed to change, both within the government and in other institutions of power.

His views were echoed across the event, which platformed a series of working class speakers, including producers, actors, and academics. Due to the panel in question, debate frequently centred around the arts. A field often under-explored in terms of socio-economic identity, panellists pointed to obscene costs of auditioning for drama schools, and the threats to the arts as a foundational component of the state-school curriculum. In pushing the arts yet further out of the reach of working class students, they become a commodity of the middle and upper classes, denying opportunity and experience to some of our most talented minds. In light of this, it is unsurprising that approximately 42% of British Bafta winners were privately educated, whilst the national average stands at just 7%.

Emphasis was placed on the damaging representations of working class people found across popular culture, with rhetoric surrounding working class identities dominated by ‘poverty porn’. Channel 4’s Benefits Street springs to mind, in many ways a mockery of those dependent on the welfare system. It presented them as evening entertainment; pitiable and detestable in equal measure. Film and media offer some of the most widespread and powerful public portrayals of working class identities, and without fair and accurate representation, working class narratives will continue to be dominated by familiar tropes and caricatures. Instead, the age-old idea of ‘no representation about us, without us’, seems as appropriate to class identities as much as any other. Britain Has Class’s emphasis on the importance of working class representation by working class people offers a refreshing take on social perceptions of class, challenging damaging narratives built by those with little authentic understanding of their subjects.

Britain Has Class stemmed out of a feeling of otherness, the founders lacking the same experiences, knowledge or support network as LSE students from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds. It’s a view I’ve heard echoed around campus, and to hear those ideas projected in Parliament was both deeply moving and immensely inspiring. The energy was palpable; a shared vision, and a shared determination to realise it.

]]>https://beaveronline.co.uk/britain-has-class-launch/feed/0Falling asleephttps://beaveronline.co.uk/falling-asleep/
https://beaveronline.co.uk/falling-asleep/#respondWed, 14 Mar 2018 18:00:52 +0000https://beaveronline.co.uk/?p=29204The drowsiness takes over and I sink back It calls and I cannot fight back Slumber has dug its claws and pulls I sleepily resist, but the world dulls. Just as I give in, it is out of reach I toss and turn and I beseech I ask for mercy in the deep Battle […]